Tidying up for the new year? Clean your digital house too

By Corvaya Jeffries GateHouse Florida

Thursday

Jan 3, 2019 at 11:00 AMJan 3, 2019 at 11:00 AM

This message is for those of you cleaning your physical home in prep for 2019 but not thinking about your digital home. That is where you spend most of your time, isn’t it? Glued to the personalized spaces and social media feeds on your phone, computer and/or watch?

Consider cleaning those feeds, unfollowing some people and deleting a few contacts. Think of it as a cleaning up of your digital collection of “friends.”

In fact, something called Unfriend Day was dubbed a holiday in 2014 when Jimmy Kimmel challenged social media platforms like Facebook for using the term “friend” so loosely, making a lot of people forget what a friend actually is.

And while Unfriend Day isn’t Internet-celebrated until Nov. 17, 2019, you shouldn’t go the next ten months without tightening your online circle. Get rid of dead weight and negative images. After all, what and who you surround yourself with determines the quality and direction of your life, doesn’t it? Digital friends are just as influential as our real-life friends, if not more. Thanks, Technology.

So don’t let the sight of nasty posts or nasty people bring you down.

Unfriend two people you wish did not appear on your timeline. Yes, even cousin Jessica because fact is: You still love her and she will live.

If you’re worried about hurting Jessica’s feelings, get over it. Just kidding. On Instagram, you can “mute” a person’s posts or live stories. And on Facebook, you can “unfollow” instead of unfriend. They’ll never know.

Doing this will make getting on your social apps less intolerable and more enjoyable. You’ll be logging on to get what you need (some laughter, inspiration or information) and protecting yourself from what you don’t (the bullcrap, drama and rants).

In the new year, unfriend people (or mute posts) every time you feel like the messages you’re feeding your mind are unhealthy. It is simple. Consider it a diet of the mind or an effort to eliminate what’s not feeding your soul.